Pioneering rehabilitation with age-friendly technology
The ARVO unit has a total of 20 customer beds and a staff specifically recruited for this new unit, so the pioneering work was able to begin from scratch. The operating purpose of the unit is to improve the operational capacity of customers and to enable safe living at home for as long as possible. In addition to the Vivago system, customers have a video phone that allows them to communicate with their relatives assisted by a caregiver.
Measuring sleep, activity and circadian rhythm of residents has been a key part of the ARVO unit’s service selection. If these key indicators in well-being are not at their best, rehabilitative actions are directed at guiding clients to a healthier rhythm, which is known to contribute to the well-being of the elderly. For some clients, correcting the circadian rhythm is one of the goals of the treatment cycle, and some are already coming to Hatanpää specifically to improve the rhythm. The ARVO unit works in between of home and ward care, so transferring knowledge and information is essential.
Ideally, wellbeing information of a client would be available before the rehabilitation period, and data collection would continue at home even after the rehabilitation period. Long-term monitoring enables measuring the quality of rehabilitation for the elderly and could also serve as a measure of the success of the ARVO unit. Responsible nurse Mia Hiltunen explains the unit's vision according to which measuring wellbeing could be done already at home before and also after the rehabilitation period. This would provide a reliable view of the individual's well-being at home environment. Short-term follow-up in the unit doesn’t necessarily reveal
the customer's overall situation, as many elderly people sleep well at home but suffer sleep problems in an unfamiliar environment. Long-term monitoring would also make it easy to detect changes in customer’s well-being and address them as early as possible.
Nurse Otto Mahkonen, a Vivago administrator, has already used Vivago at his previous workplace in a senior service house Kuusela in Tampere. He says that in Hatanpää manual alarms and night-time monitoring are routinely used, as is activity monitoring. Nurses have quickly adopted a way to go through wellbeing data every time they switch shifts. The Vivago reports are also in regular use, especially as a summary of care when a customer returns home. The use of the system has been well established and has received positive feedback from nurses regarding their ease of use.
The operation routine of the brand new unit is not yet fully established, and so far customers have been able to get to the ward quickly and without waiting. Annamari Mänty, Head of Service at the ARVO Unit, believes that in the future Vivago's wellbeing information will be increasingly used in treatment. Other wishes for the future include expanding the use of the system to home care and taking the first steps in medication effect monitoring with Vivago. Achieving these goals requires long-term development work with partners. The staff of the ARVO unit are real pioneers, who have operation development in the blood. Therefore, implementing the vision of the unit in practice is probably only a matter of time. Vivago wishes good luck and success to the development path!
